Virginia Powers, PhD

Safety, efficacy, and biomarker results from the phase II CheckMate-275 trial of the PD-1 inhibitor nivolumab (Opdivo) that support FDA and European Medicines Agency applications were reported at the 2016 ESMO Congress.

The oral multikinase inhibitor regorafenib (Stivarga) has the potential to become the standard of care as second-line treatment in patients with previously treated hepatocellular carcinoma who are unsuitable for loco-regional therapy and have progressed on sorafenib.

The addition of cetuximab to standard FOLFOX-4 chemotherapy in the first-line treatment of patients with RAS wild-type metastatic colorectal cancer significantly improved survival outcomes.

MABp1, a novel anti–interleukin 1-alpha antibody, was safe, well-tolerated, and demonstrated a significant impact on symptoms compared with placebo for patients with advanced colorectal cancer.

The first prospective study to investigate the use of immunotherapy in patients with squamous cell carcinoma of the anal canal demonstrated promising results following treatment with nivolumab.

Adding selective internal radiation therapy with SIR-Spheres Y-90 resin microspheres to standard first-line chemotherapy significantly increased hepatic depth of response in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer.

IMAB362, a novel chimeric IgG1 backbone antibody highly specific for CLDN18.2, extended median overall survival by 4.8 months when added to standard chemotherapy in patients with advanced gastric cancer.

Efficacy and safety remained strong 2 years following treatment with nivolumab for patients with advanced, refractory, squamous non-small–cell lung cancer, with an indication that cytokine levels could predict long-term outcomes.

Adding necitumumab to conventional chemotherapy improved outcomes in patients with metastatic squamous non–small cell lung cancer in the phase III SQUIRE trial, but the greatest benefit was derived by patients with EGFR-expressing tumors.

Patients with non-small cell lung cancer who had ceased to respond to EGFR TKI therapy demonstrated a rapid and robust response to the investigational agent BI-1482694 (HM61713).

With several novel therapies approaching regulatory approval, the treatment landscape for renal cell carcinoma is facing a major upheaval.

Oligometastatic prostate cancer is optimally treated with the combination of docetaxel and androgen deprivation therapy.

The dramatic and often practice-changing findings demonstrated by trials of immunotherapies in melanoma and lung cancer may soon be reflected in the treatment of bladder cancer.

Researchers are starting to understand which patients with castration-resistant prostate cancer (CRPC) may benefit most from treatment with radium-223.

Treatment with the frontline combination of erlotinib and bevacizumab was highly effective in patients with advanced non–small cell lung cancer who harbored an EGFR T790M mutation.

Adding fosaprepitant (Emend) to an antiemetic regimen significantly improved emesis control versus standard care in women receiving radiotherapy and cisplatin for cervical cancer.

Second-line atezolizumab demonstrated significant clinical benefit in patients with metastatic urothelial carcinoma who had a poor prognosis after progressing following platinum-based chemotherapy.

Inhibition of PD-L1 with atezolizumab demonstrated significant clinical efficacy as monotherapy in patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer.

Treatment with the novel peptide receptor radionuclide therapy Lutathera significantly increased progression-free survival over octreotide LAR in patients with advanced midgut neuroendocrine tumors.

Treatment with everolimus was associated with a 52% improvement in median progression-free survival compared with placebo in patients with advanced lung and gastrointestinal neuroendocrine tumors.

Patients with metastatic colorectal cancer benefited from treatment with cetuximab plus chemotherapy even after disease progression on a similar regimen as long as their tumors did not harbor mutations in any of four key genes.

The survival benefit observed with regorafenib (Stivarga) over placebo in Asian patients who had been previously treated for metastatic colorectal cancer in the international phase III CORRECT trial was confirmed by the phase III CONCUR trial.

Findings from a large expanded access program have confirmed the efficacy and safety of regorafenib in patients with previously treated metastatic colorectal cancer.

TAS-102 demonstrated similar improvements in overall survival and progression-free survival in patients with heavily pretreated colorectal cancer from the phase III RECOURSE trial stratified by KRAS mutational status.

Josep Tabernero, MD, PhD, summarized novel agents that are currently under exploration for patients with gastric cancer.

Novel agents that target the replication of the hepatitis C virus are poised to have a far-reaching impact on the prevention and recurrence of hepatocellular carcinoma and have shown the ability to reverse liver fibrosis, including cirrhosis in patients with end-stage HCC.

Investigators reported a clinically meaningful extension of overall survival with IMM-101 plus gemcitabine in patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer.

Results from a pooled dataset of more than 6000 patients with metastatic colorectal cancer found an association between low body mass index and a worse median overall survival with first-line bevacizumab and chemotherapy, suggesting that low BMI could be a prognostic factor for worse outcomes.

Infusions of CTL019 achieved durable responses and showed an acceptable safety profile in heavily pretreated patients with CD19-positive non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

A three-drug combination comprising the novel Bcl-2 inhibitor venetoclax, bortezomib, and dexamethasone demonstrated a clinical benefit in heavily pretreated patients with relapsed/refractory multiple myeloma.